well next door to us is a little sausage dog, shelly. when we first moved in she barked constantly at us or anything, her owner said she would stop when she got used to us. well a year later and she is still barking all the time. now shelly is not taken for walks and is very rarely seen by her owner, they never play and she is just left there behind the big fence. so i figured she was bored, so i started talking to her, didnt help, so i brought her toys, kongs, balls ect, didnt work, so i started feeding her and praising good quiet behaviour and trying to train through the fence, she just eats the food, and keeps barking. i can scream at her in the middle of the night and she doesnt care, i have spoken to the owner and asked if i could walk her or play with her and they dont care and wont let me take her and dont care about me screaming in the night. my girl is not a barker, a quiet dog. my dog is great about it and will tolerate the barking for ages, just ignores it, but after about 4-5 hours of it constant she gets upset and then attacks through the fence, i truly think it is sheer frustration with the other dog not being able to shut up that gets to her, i know how she feels. i have tried blocking the view so she cant see us but it doesnt help. Oh please help us, i am loosing sleep every day, the last time i slept past 6am with out waking to shelly, i cant remember ahhhh. any suggestions? thanks for your help (this is a smily of me yawning)

Well if this dog is out all night and keeping you up,I would suggest you call Animal Control.Some areas do have a law on barking all night.They will go to the owners house.If they don't work with this dog and it continues to bark all the time especially at night,the owners can be fined.

Try that.

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"A dog can express more with his tail in minutes than his owner can express with his tongue in hours."

I sort of agree with you waggie, i am rewarding bad behaviour. but OMG, i would do anything to shut her up, it may just be one of those things that wont go away till i move or my dog goes totally nuts. but i am considering ringing the council about it but i am worried what the owners will do to her if she poses problems to them, but maybe it would be good for a ranger to come and talk to them, it may just wake them up a little, i will ring them this morning and have a chat. thanks for yoiur replies every one.

I would try to do the complaining to the proper authorities anonymously if possible.

Fighting dirty may be a last resort. Go to a dollar and buy some speaker wire. Bring your speaker into your backyard. Personally (no offence intended here) I find country music to be the most annoying music on the planet, so that's what I would use. 5-6 hours of any loud country music should do the trick.

well guys, throwing garbage over the fence, i know it is my girls favourite thing to tear apart so that may just work. oh bohemia, good idea, will definatly do that, i was considering going into the neighbours front yard and howling through the night, see if they like it but i have a womping stereo with a great sub woofer ( i always thought it would be a great costume for a party) so i think some nice heavy base should do the job oh and a little shania twain might help also.. but yes i plan to stay anonymous if i call anyone, thats all i need a war over a dog. thank you all for your help

If this is a little Dachshund,what is she doing outside 24/7?
At least where I live,barking dogs after 11pm is an offence.
The dog is most likely neglected and unhappy,an easily adoptable dog,so I would call the authorities! She would be better off and probably quieter with owners who care...

chico, i live in australia, here you could leave a dog tied up in the front yard 24/7 and let it howl and that is perfectly legal. noise is judgd on decibels here but i have been told a barking dog can be heard for a long distance in a quiet area. I have talked to the woman who owns shelly but she is a really sad case (hard life, tradgedy, and isnt the smartes apple on the tree) and it is hard to get her to understand. the other neighbours cant hear the dog because of the racket their caged cockatoo makes(they are the noisiest bird on the planet,loudly screeching and talking ALL the time) and their 2 dogs, they have also been friends with the neighbor for a long time so dont want to say anything. ahh god that really bugs me. but i am going over for one last attempt this arvo and if she wont do anything i will have to ring the council (animal control). but i dont think you can do it anonymosly here, but i will check first. thanks guys, poor shelly she really is such a cute little thing, i just wish there was a little door between our yards so she could come over and play and walk with us, i sure she wouldnt be a problem then (well....) she is just sooo bored.

Melanie,I was wondering where you were this week,thought maybe you'd been attacked by a Koala or something and were in hospital
It sounds like you live in a really noisy area and your by-laws are not the same as ours,so I guess earplugs is your only option
Don't you have all kinds of strange creatures roaming around at night? I take it you live in the country-side,isn't there a danger for that little Dachshund to be taken by Dingos,Tasmanian Devils etc....
Short of stealing the poor little fellow,I guess there is not much you can do..
We have an e-mail pal in Canberra,maybe one day before we hit the bucket,we'll take the long flight and visit Australia a country that seems to be on another planet with all these unusual creatures

melanie, I'm an area rep for Dogs Deserve Better if you can tell me what city and state your in I can contact a local rep from that area and have them talk to the owners.

If that doesn't work then DDB tries to get the owners to surrender the dog over to us DDB.

We also work w/animal control. Alot of times animal control will say they don't have the time. We don't back down until the dog is either back in the house and a family pet again or the dog is surrender to us.

Either way we can try and take care of this. We will send them out a letter first then do a follow up and if the dog is still outside that's when we will go and talk to the owner.

well yesterday i went and talked to the people that live on the other side of shelly, they said it is becoming a prob for them to, when they can hear it over the bloody cockatoo. to make a long story shortish, they are old friends with the owner and will try to talk to her soon, apparently when it gets bad, they actually sneak into the yard and take shelly to their yard for a while, so heres hoping... but the woman next door has had it so hard of late, she is now a widow as her husband recently commited suicide so yeah, i am a bit cautious about being foreward or anything, i feel so sorry for them. but that is not much of an excuse. so DDB, never heard of it, sounds terrific and like a great last option, thank you for letting me know, would the owner need to know it was me, or can i be anonomous??. and chico, no koala attacks yet, but hey a dingo might steal me or i might steal it (old joke, and dumb, instead of the lindy chamberlin cry of 'dingo stole me baby', it is now' baby stole me dingo') we dont actually have dingo in the wild where i live, there is actually only one population of dingo left that are pure the rest are all mixed. but i still might be taken down by a magpie (lovely bird, but defensive in breeding) yes austraila is the land of the weird and wonderful, it is due to our early seperation of gondwanaland and our isolation so our species are pretty much endemic and are not really found elsewhere (a few in papua new guniea), i love this country and couldnt imagine being anywhere else, my fav part is the desert, so amazing and beautiful. but the dog next door is in a yard so i cant imagine she will be taken by a tasmanian devil (bloody good swimmer if a devil got here from tassie), so i hope things will be better very soon, i will let you know how it turns out, and will definatly let the neighbours know of ddb as option if we do it i would like their backing and support. oh and havent been here for a week as i am getting married in 2 weeks so things are really busy here or crazy or something (i have become a little indecisive of late) and my partner said we cant take my dog on honeymoon i dont see why not, she would love it

That's great Melanie....I guess you are in the middle of summer way,way,way out there in Australia and I hope you have a wonderful wedding,lots of gifts and all that jazz and ofcourse a good husband that comes with a wedding
I think you are about 14 hours ahead of us,or is it behind?
Anyway,once you are married maybe you'll move away from the noisy little Dachshund?

I hope this is helpful to you. If you need anything else just let me know.

Ann - I have managed to read the thread via the link you provided initially.

Two points that need to be stressed - it is ILLEGAL (under Queensland law -Animal Care and Protection Act 2001) to cause undue pain or stress to animals. In addition, depending on the size of the yard, the dog needs to be exercised at least ONCE every 48 hours. A formal complaint needs to be made with the RSPCA to initiate proceedings under this act.

The 2nd point is that under the Local Government Act 1993 (and depending on which local authority Melanie resides in) she can complain to the local council about the dog being a problem. It depends on how the local laws are constructed.

One final point - there are places across Australia that allow pets (subject to reasonable conditions) on their properties. It is a matter of doing some research.

THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH FOR YOU WELL WISHES. daisy thank you so much, what a great group you belong to, and it is nice to have a source where you can get clear info on the law here, i can never get a straight answer out of the council. and thank you for the ph number, it will help with questions we have, i explained ddb to the people on the other side and they think it may be an option if they cant sort something out with the owner.
a big thank you for being so helpful and givning me your time, i really appreciate it.
well as far as the dog goes with honey moons, well ive had charlie for 8 years and the man for 5 we have lived together for 5 years and he is charlies dog step dad, so he said that he didnt need our children on honeymoon, boo to him i say, we are getting married in a nature reserve which dogs cannot enter, so that is a bugger too, but we will get all dolled up and get photos of her with us before the ceremony. but she will be going to her nana and grandad dogs house for the honeymoon and she likes it there (my parents spoil her rotten), but still i will miss her and i will fret.
now heres hoping that in the next few days we can get some action on this whole shelly busines, even if myself and the neighbours on the other side take her walking wiht us, but i will let you know. a great big thankyou to you all, i know shelly appreciates the effort human are making to make her happier, she is a lovely little bugger and needs more love and kindness.